Six Essential Guidelines for a Better Life
If we start this children’s home, the main staff here should know that it’s not just to feed the children, like keeping animals in a zoo. Our main purpose is for their lives to be meaningful. We have to teach the children, as with Universal Education, to practice kindness all the time to everybody: people and animals; friend, enemy, stranger.
They should also rejoice whenever they see anything good happening to other people, like somebody having a nice house and garden or a beautiful car or having big success in business or even having a beautiful body. Whatever good thing happens to others they should immediately rejoice, immediately feel happiness, thinking, “How wonderful it is!” They should always feel happy when somebody has something good happen to them.
Even though you might not explain that they’re creating good karma—well, in India, you probably can explain it in that way—when they practice kindness from their heart to animals or insects, they’re always creating good karma. Even if you don’t explain or the person doesn’t understand, they’re still creating good karma. Also, if it’s something that creates a lot of merit or is done in relation to a powerful object, the person can experience the result even in this life. And because karma is expandable, from that small good karma of being kind to a person or an insect, they can experience the result of happiness and success so many times in one life or in hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. When they practice kindness in their everyday life, in one day they will be kind many times, and from each one of those acts of kindness they will experience the resultant happiness for hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. From each good karma, they will experience so much happiness; they will experience unbelievable happiness and success in future lives. It’s really amazing! From that one act of kindness they will experience happiness for hundreds or thousands of lifetimes, even if they don’t know they’ve created good karma.
It’s the same with rejoicing. The opposite of rejoicing is jealousy. When you feel jealous of somebody having success, a friend or any other good thing, it interferes with your own wishes being successful. If you give rise to jealousy and act out of that, it always becomes an obstacle to the fulfillment of your wishes for happiness, as well as an obstacle to your being able to fulfill other sentient beings’ wishes for happiness.
Now, rejoicing is exactly the same. If you rejoice, that one act of rejoicing results in happiness for hundreds or thousands of lifetimes. It’s amazing! These are the psychological methods to keep your mind happy all the time.
Next is patience. Of course, without patience, you have anger all the time, and you then destroy your family and harm yourself. Anger always brings disturbance and unhappiness to your mind and to the minds of your family and the other people around you. From one act of anger, you then experience the suffering result not only in the lower realms, where there is unbelievable suffering, but also in the human realm. When, due to another good karma, you get a human rebirth, you then experience the result of those previous acts of anger by having an ugly body and encountering many problems, many obstacles. You experience the suffering results of an act of anger for hundreds or thousands of lifetimes.
With patience, you stop getting angry and stop harming others. You then benefit yourself and your family, your neighborhood, your country and the world. With the development of patience, you benefit all sentient beings, from life to life.
Now next is forgiveness. If someone gets angry with you and harms you, you should forgive them. This is very, very important. You’re then able to bring peace and happiness to that person and to yourself. By not holding a grudge, you give peace to that person, and there’s then peace in your heart. That’s how you bring about world peace. If you don’t practice forgiveness, there is no world peace.
Next, if you hurt somebody, if you say something wrong, you should immediately apologize. You then bring peace and happiness in the heart of that person you have hurt. You bring peace and happiness to one person, two people, three people, and then to the world.
The other thing is courage. Courage is very important. You need to have courage. Otherwise, you feel depressed and hopeless; you go down, down, down, and you can’t do anything. You need courage to bear the hardships involved in practicing Dharma and in benefiting others. You need courage to be able to give up the selfish mind and benefit others. Courage is very important in worldly matters, and especially in practicing Dharma.
Whether or not you’re teaching the children OM MANI PADME HUNG or faith in Buddha, Dharma and Sangha (that might happen from their side because of their being at Root Institute, and would be most welcome), these things are very important. Giving food is good but it has very limited benefit. These are the basic things, and there are many other things from Universal Education that you can teach them. The aim is to make their lives meaningful; the aim is that they don’t harm others and that they benefit others. Generally, of course, giving food and clothing is very good—sentient beings need food and clothing. But once you have given them the food, you have this opportunity to change their mind so that they have a better life. If they have a better life, it’s very good. We have to keep in mind our goal of giving them a better life, a meaningful life, in which they don’t harm others and benefit others.
Advice on Tara Children’s Home given by Lama Zopa Rinpoche at Root Institute on January 4, 2009. Transcribed and edited by Ven. Ailsa Cameron.
